


Lightning In Your Teeth

by quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:08:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1309300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>People believe that biology makes rules.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning In Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't know what alpha/beta/omega fic is, this ain't for you. 
> 
> This fic describes: 
> 
> \- Sexual assault and rape culture  
> \- Body horror  
> \- Unsafe sex  
> \- Teenagers having sex with each other  
> \- A lot of sad and bad and unhappy stuff
> 
> Also, I talk shit about _Guns, Germs and Steel_.

I. _Staring at the Sun_

Kaiju come out of the Breach, and Onibaba destroys Tokyo. Stacker Pentecost runs solo combat in Coyote Tango and rescues Mako Mori. When Scissure makes landfall in North Sydney, there is only time to make one run in the Bell Kiowa before the second nuke. Face white, voice flat, Herc tells his brother that he always promised Angela it would be the kid. 

All of these things happen. 

Stacker Pentecost is a good man. So is Herc Hansen. 

...

In the early days, Scott Hansen explains it to a reporter. Him and his brother grew up in a traditional family, yeah? Dad was an alpha, and Mum an omega. Dad ate first while Mum knelt on the floor by his feet and didn't sit in a chair until after the kids were fed. That's how they were raised. So him and his brother understood where people are coming from, but not even the most old-fashioned alpha could argue with facts. It was working; the Corps hadn't lost a beta-piloted Jaeger to date. On the Corps' watch, no kaiju had made landfall for over fourteen months. That was four, count 'em, four cities saved, tens of millions of people protected. 

Scott says it in a friendly voice and smiles at the end to keep it from being too aggressive, keeping his lips over his teeth. The reporter glances over at Herc, who hasn't said more than five words in the interview. 

"Is the time coming for an omega to pilot a Jaeger?" she says, hoping that Herc will answer. Scott looks over, too, but Herc keeps his arms over his chest and doesn't seem inclined to open his mouth. 

Scott steps in to save everybody embarrassment. "Speaking for myself, and this is just me, mind, and I don't know the brass's thinking or what's coming down the pipe, because they leave me out of that sort of thinking, but I hope the war'll be over before then," he says. 

Then, he winks at the reporter, who is young and pretty. Scott is young and handsome and remarkably charming and a Jaeger pilot on top of everything else, so even though she is a professional, the reporter blushes. She controls it, but for a moment, both Herc and Scott can smell something in the air, rich and deep, that hooks directly into their brains. Familiar, of course, in some ways, but Herc frowns, trying to put his finger on -- is his sense of smell going? Is he getting old? Herc is still frowning about it in the car afterwards, so Scott laughs and explains to his old stick of a brother that these days, the omegas wear perfume that you can't smell unless they're releasing. Works with the pheromones. The cheap stuff can be terrible, but the nice stuff is something, right? Herc looks perturbed and a little scandalized. 

Scott tells the smiling driver that his brother doesn't approve of how short skirts are these days, either. 

...

The year is 2008. Chuck is five years old, and they're at a Christmas party at the house of an old friend from Herc and Scott's flight school days. There are drinks and eggnog and good cheer; Herc is sitting in a chair, beer in hand. Angela sits at his feet, head on his knee. She is wearing a dress, and her legs are tucked underneath her and crossed at the ankles. 

Every once in a while, Herc touches her hair. Whenever he says something, Angela turns her head to watch his face. When he laughs, she smiles and leans more closely against him. Herc strokes the back of her neck, asks if she wants a beer. Eggnog? Water? Is she thirsty? He's half-standing already to let her know how willing he was to get some, but Angela shakes her head and touches his knee, so Herc goes back to sitting down, hand resting against her hair: Angela Hansen is so happy to have her man home again, even if it's only for holiday leave. At some point, Chuck and two kids tear across the room, yelling. At some point, Scott comes over, beer also in hand, and talks to both of them. The three of them smile and laugh. 

It's 2008, so people have phones that take video. Kids running, Christmas music, people hanging out and having a good time. Clips are posted to Facebook for friends and family, and after Scissure comes through, after Lucky Seven is commissioned, some journalists dig it up and post it alongside human interest articles about how Herc and his brother are the first Australians to get a Jaeger. 

The Sydney Morning-Herald has a long piece, and the print edition has a shot of a frame where all four of the Hansens are visible, Chuck with his face screwed up, the adults laughing at him, Herc's hand on the back of Angela's neck. The article has a lot of writing to the effect of: this is why we fight. 

...

Herc and Scott grew grew up in a traditional family, one male alpha, one female omega, children. Herc and Angela are traditional, too. It works for them; they're happy. 

...

In 2013, Mako Mori is ten and running for her life from Onibaba. 

...

In 2018, Mako Mori is fifteen years old. She is the youngest candidate ever to make it past the second cut at the Jaeger Academy, and she goes to sign up for Drift practice in the simulation practices -- that's the third unit, and everyone left was supposed to put their names down for at least three slots. The McLeans from North Dakota happen to be there, highly regarded prospects who'd been in the US Army before signing up, and one of them asks Mako what the hell she thinks she's doing, taking up a slot that could have gone to somebody with an actual chance of killing kaiju. 

Mako says back something sharp about how her scores are better across the board, class, simulator, field, and Kwoon. The other McLean says no scores will keep her from being a bitch, which is when Chuck Hansen comes barreling in, shoving his way through the crowd and yelling: somebody makes a comment about look at him, every inch a little alpha. What do you expect? You remember being that way? Chuck puffs a little with pride and talks more shit. The McLeans look at each other. They expect this from a kid like Chuck, and it takes the aggression right out of them. Who doesn't remember being that way? So they switch gears and play along, winding Chuck up, letting him have his moment in the sun and impress his girl. 

But Mako gets paler and paler and paler. Her hands clench into fists. 

Eventually, one of the McLeans crosses a line: if Chuck is going to put himself out this much, she suggests, Chuck should be getting Mako's first heat. Is that what she promised him? 

Abruptly, the world drops away from Mako. Without thinking, she steps forward, moving fast and smooth to deliver an elbow strike to the stomach. It folds that McLean in half, and while she is still gasping and clutching at her midsection, Mako pivots, hooks one foot around the left leg of the woman's brother. Using her low center of gravity and body weight, Mako drops him onto the floor, then rolls, flips, and locks: the instructors come running, drawn by the noise. Mako is applying crushing pressure to the bones of the wrist, grinding against the pressure points. McLean is trying his best not to scream, but there are tears in his eyes, and Mako is panting. The strain of holding a man fifty pounds heavier than her is starting to tell; there is sweat running down her back and starting to get into her eyes. Mako knows the crowd around her is angry. Unsettled. Chuck won't be able to do a thing if she gets rushed. He looks stricken. 

But her teeth are bared; she regrets nothing. 

"Apologize," she says, staring at the other McLean, speaking clearly to make sure she can be understood despite her accent and fast breathing. "Or I break your Drift partner's wrist, and you both wash out." 

...

Because of that incident, Mako takes enough demerits to drop her out of the top twenty-five. On the other hand, fighting isn't grounds for expulsion. Brawling is an expected part of the Jaeger Academy. Each class starts with a hundred people who have the basic instincts and inclinations and desire to pilot three-hundred foot tall fighting robot that punches aliens to death. Two thirds of them are alphas; the remainder are usually big betas. Fights happen. 

In Mako's class, there are nine omegas, including her. There are seven left after the first cut, four after the second, two after the third. Mako is the only one who makes it through: she is, by years, the youngest omega to ever enter the Jaeger Academy. She is, in fact, the first omega to ever qualify for piloting a Jaeger. 

People point out that the extra time she gets in the Kwoon, practicing with the Hansen boy, whose father and uncle are in Lucky Seven and is going to be a bruiser of an alpha in a couple years. Plus, what Jaeger Academy instructor is going to cut Stacker Pentecost's little girl, even if she's a no-doubt omega?

...

There are male omegas; there are female alphas. There are omegas who look like betas, and there are big betas who look like alphas. Occasionally, there are even omegas who look like alphas, or alphas who, on first glance, look like omegas. 

Nevertheless, people believe that biology makes rules: even they don't always hold true, generally, alphas are alphas. Generally, betas are betas. Generally, omegas --

...

If an alpha and an omega have unprotected sex and somebody gets pregnant, it's always the omega. If an alpha and a beta have unprotected sex and somebody gets pregnant, it's usually the beta. If two betas have unprotected sex, it's even odds who gets pregnant. Omegas have heats, and aroused omegas leave pheromone trails that streak across the vision of every alpha in the vicinity. Strong enough, deep enough into heat, and even betas react. 

Generally, on a species-wide basis, more men are alphas than women are. In the United States, female alphas get the federal vote in 1920. Female omegas don't get the federal vote until Kennedy in 1961. 

...

Stacker is an alpha. Both the Hansens are alphas, and Chuck, as the son of a male alpha out of a female omega, with his frame and growth rate and personality, will probably be an alpha.

Mako Mori is a female omega who looks like a female omega. She has the face, the frame, the voice. She can go to the gym and train, but she has to work twice as hard as an alpha to put half the muscle on her body and twice as hard to keep it there. One time, she makes the mistake of working out later than she normally does: a morning spec meeting ran late, and there are more people in the weight section than usual. She struggles while doing chest presses. Technically, she shouldn't be lifting more weight than she has comfortably done before unless she has a spotter, but this isn't her usual work-out time, so the deputy communications chief she usually works out with isn't around. Instead, a friendly technician in munitions tells his gym buddy to hold for a sec. 

_Nature didn't mean you for this, little lady,_ the technician says, smiling. He lifts the bar off her and sets it back in place. 

Without saying a word, Mako sits up, wipes her face, and watches him go red with mortification when he recognizes her face, the blue streaks in her hair. He apologizes, reddens some more, then slinks away after Mako tells him, calmly, _thank you_.

Mako wipes down the bench, then walks out of the gym, head high, face calm: what proportion of the technician's embarrassment had been because he called the lead on the Gipsy Danger reconstruction project _little lady_? And what proportion is because he tried to pick up Stacker Pentecost's adopted omega daughter by telling her that she didn't need to lift weights to be attractive? 

...

Even before coming off active duty, Stacker is at the heart of internal pressure pushing to reform the PPDC. The Kaidanovskys are an all alpha-pair -- the Mark I's all were, but by the time Crimson Typhoon is ready for staffing, Stacker is able to push the Wei-Tangs as through as the second all-beta team. They successfully defend Hong Kong solo seven times. 

The Beckets had been a pair of brothers, one alpha, one beta. 

...

For Stacker Pentecost, an integrated, equalized PPDC is matter of long-held moral principle. Mako is part of it, but only a part: on the other hand, what do opponents make into a talking point? Stacker Pentecost, hero of Tokyo, pushing to change the culture of the Corps because he believes that an organization dedicated to protecting humanity should treat all humans fairly and with respect? 

Or that he is doing it for his adopted omega daughter who thinks, if she tries hard enough, she can be an alpha? 

...

Mako remembers -- 

...

"I would like to see the figures, please," Mako says. Mako remembers being young, small, not as assured as she would later be, but still confident enough that even though the doctor blinks, she brings out the chart and shows Mako the numbers. She starts to walk Mako through what the various indices mean and the charts, but after listening to a minute or so of it, Mako says, yes, she knows what BPC2 and OPC3 are and why the proportions are significant. Instead, hands shaking even in her memory, Mako flips ahead to the chart in the back showing expected progressions. 

The doctor clears her throat. "So, Miss Mori, if these trends continue, I'd expect your first heat sometime in the next six months. You know the signs to watch for -- flushing, feeling warm all the time, thirst?" 

Mako nods, mouth set into a flat line. Something about the expression on her face makes clear that the doctor should keep to herself the standard comment about how Mako is going to make some alpha or beta very happy someday. They talk a little more, and Mako giving clipped answers. Yes, she knows what to expect. Yes, she understands about the various options she can explore once her first heat is over. After the doctor finishes the prepared portion of her talk, she asks Mako if she has any questions; Mako shakes her head, so the doctor gathers up the printouts and adds them to the standard _So You're Going to Be An Omega_ packet. 

Stacker is in the waiting area outside, in civilian clothes, his coat over his knees. When Mako comes in, he stands, and they get a taxi back to the Shatterdome: the driver leaves them at the gate, and Stacker pays him through the window. They walk together back onto base, showing their ID's, then take the elevator up. They walk down the hall; Stacker unlocks the door, and they take off their shoes and put them together by the door. Then, Mako and Stacker sit down on the couch together, and Mako hands the file to Stacker. He reads them from the first data sheet to the last page of the brochure on safety When he's done, he puts the documents down on the coffee table. Mako leans her head Stacker, but manages to hold in her tears until Stacker touches her back, gently, between the shoulder blades.

"It's all right," he says, softly, in Japanese. "I know you are disappointed, but I am not. It makes no difference to me, Miss Mori." 

Mako sucks her breath in sharply, and Stacker tucks his arm around her, so that she can lean her head against his chest. Mako can't hold her tears anymore. She cries until she is shaking and hyperventilating, until the front of Stacker's shirt is soaked with tears from her disappointment at being an omega. Mako knows she looks like an omega; she knows that with her size and conformation, she shouldn't have expected anything else, but where was her first heat? Omegas usually had their first heat by thirteen, and here she was, almost fourteen and a half, still dry. 

Mako was hoping against hope that maybe she was a beta; Stacker took her off-base to a private doctor for full blood work. 

...

"Are you sure you do not mind?" 

Mako's voice is raw with crying, and they are sitting against the couch. She is curled up against him as if she were ten years old again, shaking after a nightmare of being in the alley with Onibaba. This, Mako thinks, is worse than a nightmare: she isn't going to wake up from being an omega. This is her body. She will never be significantly bigger or stronger; she will never pilot a Jaeger. People will always look at her the way they do now, pity and curiosity mixed. She will have to prove herself, over and over and over. If she comes up short, she will be an embarrassment to _sensei_ , who she owes so much to. 

Mako bites back a sob, and Stacker touches her cheek so that she will look up at him and see his face and knows how much he means what he says. 

"It makes no difference to me, Miss Mori," Stacker says. 

"Are you disappointed?" 

"You will never disappoint me because of this." 

The desperation on Mako's face makes Stacker's heart turn over.

...

Mako doesn't have her first at thirteen or fourteen or fourteen and a half or fifteen. She goes to the Academy. There is a contingency plan for what will happen if she has her first heat while at the Academy; the other omegas are on suppressants, but suppression of first heats is medically contraindicated for healthy omegas. Consequently, Mako reports to the infirmary every morning for basal temperature testing. The door to her quarters is metal, two inches thick, and locks from both the inside and the outside. 

...

The Jaeger Academy, a crowd of cadets, the sign-ups for full Drift simulations. Two McLeans. Chuck, shoulders back, face torn between pleasure that adults are treating him like an alpha and real anger on Mako's behalf.

"All this trouble for an omega? I hope she promised you her first wet heat." 

Mako moves without thinking. 

...

Herc Hansen is a good man, and he raises Chuck largely on his own. The best that he can, and before the kids go to the Academy, he and Stacker have a serious talk. The kids are inseparable during the times when they're on the same Shatterdome and are constantly e-mailing and SMS'ing and Skyping when they're not. Chuck looks like he'll be an alpha, looks like Herc did at that age. Acts like Herc did at that age. Chuck doesn't worry about it, though if pressed, he'd acknowledge that it was theoretically possible that he might not be an alpha, but it wasn't going to happen. He was going to be an alpha. Mako, even if she wouldn't admit it, was going to be an omega. It would, in Chuck's opinion, work out. 

Then, the kids come back from the Academy, and Mako wants nothing to do with Chuck. They're Drift compatible -- half their drops at the Academy are with each other, and all of those are clean. Flawless, some of the fastest kill times on record for those simulations, and Australia is talking about commissioning a new Jaeger. First preference would be an all-Australian, all-alpha father-son team, but Stacker thinks they can be moved if he packages it correctly. 

...

Then, Stacker leaves for two weeks to go on high-level talks in New York City -- no kaiju are scheduled for another month at least, and Mako stays behind. Chuck seems happier. Two days into it, at lunch, Herc sees Chuck and Mako eating together, arguing about some element of Jaeger design. Then, five days after Stacker leaves, Chuck comes skidding into the repurposed supply closet where Herc does paperwork. Chuck's eyes are wide; he is out of breath, and he looks terrified. Mako was -- Mako was -- 

"Where? Infirmary?" 

"We were up in the D-9 storage bay, looking at coupling links for the Mark IV's. I locked her in one of the units," Chuck says and looks suspiciously close to crying. 

...

Herc Hansen is a good man. Stacker Pentecost is a good man who had been pushing for non-alphas in the cockpits of Jaegers even before he was forced off active duty; after he went on administrative duty, he began to push for better conditions and integration of betas and omegas at every level of Shatterdome and Corps operations. Better training. Formal protections. A no-tolerance policy that is strictly enforced. 

...

Herc and Scott almost wreck Lucky Seven when deployed as part of a three-team operation against a large Category-2 off Jakarta. 

In the middle of it, with the kaiju at two thousand yards and closing, Herc found himself inside a Drift memory of Scott's: a night in Hong Kong, an omega who was drunk and crying and had changed his mind and was trying to push Scott off. Did it matter if it was a man or a woman? Scott would have preferred it from a woman, but an omega was an omega, and Scott had been promised a wet hole. He had been led on. Consequently, Herc was in the RABIT, standing to the side in the hotel room, wearing a Driftsuit with his helmet under his hand and watching his brother hold an omega facedown on the bed, one arm twisted up. Every time the man tried to move away, Scott wrenched the arm tighter; the man tried to wriggle out from under Scott, actually managed to get his right knee partly underneath his body, but Scott pulled the arm so tight the man screamed. 

"Hold still," Scott said and loosened up on the arm a little, so the man could breathe. "This can be good for you, too." 

The man began to cry and tried to go on fighting, but the teeth on his shoulder, the mix of fear and pain and having alpha on top of him did their work. 

Scott didn't even have to rub between the man's legs. 

...

Herc has a distant memory of tearing out of his motion harness going after his brother. LOCCENT was screaming at him over the Conn; other pilots were screaming at them over the Conn, but what did they know? Herc was vaguely aware of trying to tear Scott's helmet off; Scott was fumbling to get out of his motion harness and shouting that his pilot had gone berserk. Herc had no intention of stopping; the Drift memory was still in his head. He could still taste -- he could still smell -- 

Sandhound was bearing down on them, and Herc knows that if it had been a solo deployment, he and Scott would have died in their Jaeger. 

...

For Stacker, equality is a deeply held moral principle, understood as a child growing up black in London, expanded to gender equality while being raised by his older sister, expanded again to include biological equality after joining the PPDC. 

For Herc Hansen, for a long time, equality was abstract. Everyone disapproved of racism and domestic abuse. Rape was wrong. People should be respected for who they were, not their biological function: these were basic, agreed-upon background truths. For all his institutional loyalty to the Corps and personal loyalty to Stacker, for Herc, there was no personal element until he fell into a memory and watched his brother pin an omega. 

_You're going to want this_ , Scott says, low and soft. 

After so many years of Drifting, Herc stands inside the memory and hears Scott's voice inside his head, resonating in the marrow of his bones. After so many years piloting, he feels, almost as his own, the jolt of arousal that goes through Scott when the omega, crying, deeply ashamed and frightened, starts to get wet. 

Herc remembers -- 

...

Herc knocks on the door. "Miss Mori," he says. 

There's a shuffling noise inside. 

"Mr. Hansen," she says. Her voice sounds a little hoarse. "Did Chuck get you?"

"Yes."

"Is he out there with you now?"

"Yes." A pause, and Herc clears his throat. "How are you feeling, Mako?" 

"I'm so thirsty. It's warm, and I hurt," Mako says. "Please let me out of here, Mr. Hansen." 

Herc hesitates. Mako sounds reasonable enough, sane enough, early enough. If there was an omega who could keep control during a delayed first heat, it would be Mako Mori, Stacker's daughter. Then, Mako starts to throw herself against the door. Once. Twice. Three times. Then she starts to wail, long and high-pitched, and the hair on the back of Herc's neck goes up. 

"She was doing that before when I wouldn't let her out and I wouldn't -- " Chuck can't finish the sentence. He looks miserable. "Should we call Mr. Pentecost?" 

"No time. Go to the connbox at the end of the hall. We need medical," Herc says to Chuck. He braces himself against the door; Chuck doesn't need to be told to run, as Mako throws herself against the door so hard that it rattles. 

...

"Where are they?"

"Coming," Chuck says, out of breath, and they listen to Mako throw herself against the door again, hard enough to rattle a solid metal door. There is a sliding noise, then quick footsteps on the metal floor going away, then quick footsteps coming back towards them. Mako throws herself against the door again. 

"Please," she says. "I can hear you out there. I'm thirsty." 

There is an odd tone in Mako's voice, and Herc clears his throat. "Did you hurt yourself, Miss Mori?" 

"I twisted my ankle," she says, and they hear her whimper a few times while walking away from the door. Then, almost impossibly quick steps. Herc glances at Chuck; Chuck continues to look absolutely miserable, and they brace the door. Mako slams into it, hard enough that the hinges rattle, which shouldn't be possible. How much does she weigh? 45 kilos? Maybe 50? Herc keeps his shoulder against the door while Mako slides down it, gestures for Chuck to keep his shoulder against it, too, and they can hear her: the her breathing, along with the little whimper that might be pain, might be something else. 

Herc forces himself to ignore it. 

"She's going to hurt herself," Chuck says. "Can't we go in and try to -- "

"Please, Mr. Hansen, Chuck," Mako asks, softly. She is so close to the door that she doesn't have to speak very loudly, and Herc swears he can almost feel, almost imagine -- 

"My ankle hurts. So does my shoulder." 

There's a note in her voice that makes Chuck swallow audibly. 

"Mr. Hansen? Chuck?" She pauses, then says something in Japanese. Herc looks at Chuck for a translation, and Chuck's face is tight with pain. His right hand is balled up into a fist, and he looks away from Herc as he puts Mako's words into English.

"She says she's wet and can smell us." 

Later, in the Drift, Herc finds out that it's the first time Mako's spoken Japanese to Chuck since he waded into that fight with the McLeans at the Academy: in the moment, Herc leans against the door with his son. They listen to Mako limping back the dozen steps or so she can take along the length of the room, moaning a little with each step. Then, quick steps. Then, the shudder of the door. Mako is hurt already, with a bad ankle and at least a tweaked shoulder. She sobs as she slides down the other side of the door. 

They listen to Mako pick herself up, walk back, and come at the door in a run. 

...

Medical finally, finally arrives in the form of a single nurse, walking slow, taking his fucking time. Twenty-five, twenty six, Herc guesses. "Somebody go off their meds?" he asks. 

"First heat," Herc says, resisting the urge to smack the man square in the face. 

Blink. Swallow. "Late bloomer on the tech crew?" 

"Mako Mori," Chuck says, and Chuck and Herc hear the quick footsteps, so they brace themselves against the door. Everyone hears the rattle when she hits the door, then, the stifled sobbing. Pleading for water. She's so thirsty, she says. Please, will someone help her? Mako has progressed to being desperate enough to say, in English, that she is wet. She can smell them. 

"I'm not going in there alone," the nurse says, face white. 

...

It isn't just fear of what the Marshal will do to the man or woman who lays a wrong hand on his unbred daughter during her first heat. It's also the heat itself: heat changes omegas. It makes them, temporarily, faster. Stronger. It increases their pain tolerance. Popular speculative science writing says that in the distant past, these traits evolved so that omegas could run from everyone but the alpha or beta of their choice. Stronger, so that they could fight off everyone but their chosen suitor. 

Where does the increased pain tolerance come in? 

...

Mako Mori, not in heat, could probably break an untrained beta medical technician in ten moves. In heat, it would take her five? Possibly less. Even with her ankle, even with what is probably a dislocated shoulder, she is inhumanly fast and strong. Some part of her knows what is happening to her and hates it; she begs while the door is closed, but Herc sees fear move over her face when they get the door open and she sees both of them. 

Fear and shame, Herc reminds himself. 

_That's how the real Mako feels about this. How scared would you have been at sixteen? What if you'd had a daughter? How scared was Angela the first --_

"We've got a nurse outside, Mako," Chuck says in what is trying to be a soothing voice. "He's calling up your stats, and he'll figure out the dosage. We'll get you to the -- "

He approaches her, hands up, palms out, and Herc knows: there is some part of Mako that recognizes them, but there is some other part of her that thinks she is about to be held down and fucked on a metal floor in a storage bay by two alphas for her first time. There is a part of her that wants that; there is another part of her that is terrified. Parts within parts. 

For the moment, the part of her that is terrified wins: she moves to run, and even with the twisted ankle, she is fast. To keep her from getting past him, Chuck grabs her by the elbow on her dislocated arm. Mako spins, and using her good arm, she strikes at his stomach to knock the breath out of him, then strikes his wrist to get him to let go; Herc catches her around the waist and tackles her to the floor, clawing and screaming and kicking. Chuck staggers back to his knees, and comes close to pin Mako's shoulders to the floor; Herc takes the bottom half. It takes both of them to hold her down to the ground without hurting her. 

Mako screams again, high-pitched and desperate, then says something in Japanese that makes Chuck flinch like he's been slapped. 

A breath later, she offers it to Herc in English. "I'll do both of you."

She adds, "Same time. On the floor. I promise I won't tell." 

A moment, in the same begging tone of voice: "Mr. Hansen, Chuck, please don't hurt me." 

Chuck lets out a noise that sounds like a sob. 

"Please," Mako says again. " _Please_ \-- "

Out of the corner of his eye, Herc sees her reach up with her good hand and take Chuck's hand by the wrist. Chuck tries to pull away, but can't get any leverage to do it unless he shifts his weight. If he shifts his weight, Mako will surge up; Herc can't help without letting go of the bottom half of Mako, and he tries not to look while Mako puts Chuck's index finger and middle finger into her mouth. All the way back, all the way in, one smooth motion. Chuck moans; Mako moans and arches up against the forearm Herc has planted across her hips, trying to find something to rub against. She is, Herc knows, so far gone. The fear is either vanished, or more likely, temporarily pushed back by lust: Herc doesn't know how or why her first heat got delayed, but guesses that three years of pent-up hormones, three years of fear and anxiety and dread -- 

Mako is so wet that she soaked through her clothes. 

It isn't even a smell anymore, like it was when they first came in. Herc can taste it in his nose, in his mouth, along his whole body. It's the best moment of every good fuck he's ever had, every time a beta or omega has wrapped a leg around him and pulled him deeper, every time he put his mouth against the back of Angela's neck and tasted how much she needed him. Memories, smells, tastes that have a direct line to the brain. Herc tells himself, over and over to override the smell, the feel of Mako twisting and turning under his hands. It's a myth that first heats smell different. This is Mako, who is a child, who is sixteen, who is terrified and angry and ashamed and miserable, who has been dreading this day for years. 

All this notwithstanding, Herc is completely hard. 

And if he's hard, with the way Chuck feels about Mako, his sixteen year old shit of a son who only talks to his father to pick a fight, who is completely in love with a girl who will never love him back unless Herc has misjudged Mako, Herc can only imagine what -- two fingers deep into Mako's mouth, Chuck is still fighting it. He is panting, trying to tell Mako that this isn't what she wants. He is even trying to pull his fingers out of her mouth, but Mako holds them in her, fingers around Chuck's wrist hard enough to bruise, shoving his fingers and hand into her mouth deep enough that she would be gagging if she weren't so deep into heat. 

Chuck whimpers. Mako whimpers, and the sound is muffled because of Chuck's fingers. 

Herc shoves one elbow under her knees, pins Mako's legs together, and roars for the nurse to _move_. 

...

The nurse finally gets the right dosage, finally sedates her, and rather than wait for the gurney with the concomitant worry about Mako waking up before it arrives or while she is being transported , Herc carries Mako over his shoulder, the nurse and Chuck following. 

Pentecost flies back four days later, three days ahead of schedule. He spends most of his waking hours sitting with a groggy Mako, holding her hand when she is awake, doing work when she isn't. She cries a few times, but sedation keeps her from becoming hysterical again: the only time she shows strong emotion is when Stacker tells her, gently, that Chuck is outside in the waiting room. He has been sleeping there ever since they brought her in. 

Mako refuses to see him. 

...

Herc tries to tell his son how proud he is: for coming to get him, for doing the right thing, for being a good person and a good friend to Mako. 

Chuck refuses to talk about it with him or anyone else. 

 

II. _Standing in the Sea_

A UCLA professor writes a best-selling book that aims to explain why certain cultures thrived and became imperial powers when others didn't. Guns, germs, and steel are three of the reasons. Also, the lack of large domesticated animals of burden in the New World. Also, the preponderance of betas in Northern Europe resulting in stable, consistently rational, science, innovation, and commerce-minded cultures. The Northern Renaissance? The Industrial Revolution? Copernicus and Newton were both betas. 

All part and parcel. 

Biology determines results. Biology is from a certain way of thinking, undeniably _destiny_. 

...

Every morning, Mako wakes. 

Every morning, Mako turns on the bedside light, puts her feet into slippers, then brushes her teeth and washes her face. 

Before she hits the gym if it's a gym day, before she dresses if her first scheduled item is a meeting, she sits down with her medical routine: metharocin, because even if she isn't a Jaeger pilot, she spends enough time in and out of Jaegers that radiation build-up is an issue. Then, the part of her routine for controlling her heats. Then, the part of her routine for controlling the way she smells. Then, birth control, just in case. 

Raleigh Becket is not what she expects. 

...

What did she think he would look like? Skinnier. Smaller. His height was in the file, along with his weight, but he looks exactly the way he does in his dossier picture. Who manages to keep Jaeger weight through five years in a ration zone? It's easier for a male beta to keep muscle on his body than for a female beta, and easier for a female beta than a male omega, but every regimen that produces Jaeger-ready results takes thousands of calories a day above the standard allotment on the Wall -- carbs and protein to provide the energy for a brutal cardiovascular and weight-lifting schedule. Leisure to do it in. Warmth. A reason. 

So when Mako sees him, tired and dirty and filthy, but big and moving like a Jaeger pilot, she is surprised. 

Another surprise: he doesn't assume that she'll hand her umbrella to Mr. Pentecost and step into the rain. Is it because he can't tell she's an omega? Most people either guess or take one look at her and assume. 

Another -- 

... 

Third surprise: he understands Japanese and speaks a little. His accent is terrible, but intelligible. _Better or worse?_ he asks.

Fourth surprise: he tells her that Gipsy Danger was always one of a kind. 

Fifth surprise: he isn't surprised that she picked the candidates for him.

Sixth surprise: he asks if she's a pilot. He asks if she is one of the candidates he'll meet in the morning. 

...

Mako remembers a trip with Hermann and Vanessa. She was nineteen, and kaiju were coming through the breach every three months. Taurax had gone west towards the Indonesian archipelago, so what could they do in Los Angeles? Hong Kong Shatterdome had it in hand; Hermann and Mako were scheduled to present at a technical conference in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas? Newt made a series of excited, obnoxious comments, but the three of them went without him: Vanessa, Hermann, and Mako. Vanessa was a Los Angeles native and laughed about how she hadn't been to Vegas in years. She wanted to relive her teenage years, she said, and Mako had just gotten an international driver's license. 

At a gas station just past the state line, Hermann needs to use the bathroom, so Angela and Mako fill up the car, then go inside the store to wait. 

By the newspaper display, there are cards for what Mako guesses are local brothels: 

_Hottest stable of bitches between LA and Vegas_

_Heat-freak omegas available 24/7/365 for U_

_Thick hung alphas_

There's a picture of a man who looks like _sensei_ , except there is -- 

Mako blinks, then hears Vanessa call her name. 

"Hey," Vanessa says, gently, touching Mako on the arm. "Do I look ridiculous these glasses or what?" she asks Mako. They're oversized lime green novelty glasses from the stand by Mako's elbow, twice as wide as Vanessa's face, with hot pink flamingos glued to the sides, so yes, Vanessa looks ridiculous. 

Belatedly, Mako realizes her right hand is clenched in a fist so tight that there is blood on her palm. 

...

Vanessa is an alpha. Hermann is a beta. Vanessa is younger than him by more than a decade, taller than him by more than a head. She is big and strong; she has golden-brown skin that glows with health. Confident voice, lovely laugh. Head-turningly beautiful and brilliant and successful. Completely in love with her man. 

_We're not a traditional family,_ Vanessa says, cheerfully, the first time Mako meets her and surprise shows on her face. Vanessa doesn't hold it against her. 

...

 _An alpha, a beta, and an omega walk into a gas station._

During the trip to Las Vegas, Hermann is six months pregnant. It's why they stop for a bathroom break every forty-five minutes, even though he loathes unhygienic gas station bathrooms, even though with his cane, even at the best of times, he hates maneuvering through unfamiliar bathroom set-ups and uneven, slippery floors and stupid doors and illogically shaped sinks. Mako doesn't need to be told that with Hermann's age and other issues, it'll be a difficult pregnancy -- Mako and Vanessa do all the driving, and when she isn't driving, Mako twists back and forth, trying to look out all the windows at once. She is fascinated by the scenery: all this dry land, all these bare mountains, no vegetation, no ocean. This is the furthest inland she has ever been.

Smetimes, while she is twisting around to look at plateaus and buttes and mesa's, though, she looks back and sees Hermann dozing in the rear, seat belt on and one hand resting on his stomach. He is smiling even in his sleep, looking softer and happier than she has ever seen him. 

Vanessa would wait on him hand and foot if he let her. His pride means that she restricts it to holding hands with him while they sit and watch the fountain show in front of the hotel: a fountain show in the middle of the desert, but Mako looks over her shoulder at them, Dr. Gottlieb with his head on Vanessa's shoulder. His head is on her shoulder, and his cane is on the bench next to them. 

Then -- 

...

Then, just shy of seven months in, three weeks after the trip, Hermann loses the pregnancy. 

The miscarriage itself almost kills him; he spends a week in the infirmary and comes out even paler than usual. Three days after discharge, his hand shakes so badly that he snaps every piece of chalk that he touches in half: Mako says maybe they should look at data sheets instead, and a month later, on a girl's night out with just the two of them at a bar in Kennedy Town in Hong Kong, Vanessa gets drunk and tells Mako that Hermann wants to try again. He wants to give her children, he says. He wants them to be a true family. 

At the bar, Vanessa puts her head in her hands and starts to cry. 

...

Mako knows that most heats aren't as bad as her first. She knows that most first heats aren't as bad as her first, but she never wants another one. She -- 

The place she feels most comfortable in the world is the Kwoon. 

...

Raleigh Becket surprises Mako the day she meets him, and he surprises her again in the morning. 

"Remember, it's about compatibility. It's a dialogue, not a fight." 

Becket was, she thinks, possibly going to add something more but doesn't. Did somebody tell him, or did he finally figure it out? Mako knows her shoulders are straightening. She can feel herself breathing more deeply, senses the weight shift because she is lengthening her stride. The staff fits in her hand; the mat feels steady underneath her feet. She knows that with her blouse off and tank top showing, Becket can see the scent-suppressant patch, taped down over the back of her neck. It's as large across as her palm. 

Mako steps into Becket's opening move; he thinks it's overconfidence and brings his hanbo up, quicker than he did for any of the others. She wants him not to go easy? She wants him to take it as seriously as if she weren't a full head shorter than him, seventy pounds lighter, a woman and an omega and Stacker Pentecost's adopted daughter? Fine. He'll step into every advantage, but Mako still puts him on his knees, then on his his back, then yanks one leg up so that his hips are in the air and stares him down over the line of his body. Her mouth is open; her arms shake with adrenaline. Sweat runs into her eyes. 

She doesn't know what to make of the expression on Raleigh's face. 

...

Mako remembers arguing with Chuck in Sydney about being an omega, which she wasn't, for the record: Chuck pointed out that plenty of people were omegas and seemed fine about it. Long Beach Shatterdome even had an omega second-in-command. Plus, Chuck said that some omegas actually liked being in heat. So how bad could it be? Mako called _kalokohan_ , as Lisa, Lucky Seven's lead engineering tech would say, so Chuck looked at her for a long moment.

"Some people like it."

Mako repeated herself, this time in English. "Bullshit."

So Chuck pulled out his personal tablet, and after making her swear, swear, he handed her one of the earbuds, and they sat together twenty-five floors above the Shatterdome floor, legs hanging over the edge, and watched a clip of a pretty brown-haired alpha lady fucking someone who looked like an omega male. The camera didn't show her face or much of her body; it focused on the face and body of the man. Chuck said, in a little strangled voice, that he was an omega in heat. You could tell. Listen to the noises he was making. Look how he kept licking his lips. 

When Mako looked over at Chuck, she saw the spots of red in his cheeks. He didn't want to look her in the eye, and when Mako figured out that the soft noises the man was making were synched to the forward thrusts of the woman -- 

Mako felt like there was something warm in the small of her back, then something else slippery between her legs. They were shoulder to shoulder; their knees were touching, and she watched the alpha put her hand on the omega's head and pull his head back by the hair, hard. 

The omega didn't seem to mind and arched his back and tilted his head a little more to show his throat to the camera. 

Mako blinked. Felt warmer. Felt aware of Chuck. 

...

This, Mako remembers thinking, was what people meant when they said something was _wet_. Usually, they used it when something was going poorly or somebody was getting screwed. 

_Sensei_ disapproved of people using the word around him that way. 

...

The tablet was set off to the side, having finished its video and gone back to the start. Mako liked the way Chuck's mouth felt against her skin, kissing his way down her neck, licking at the spot between her collarbones. She pulled his t-shirt up and out from being tucked under his belt, and he moaned. Mako remembers liking that noise, so she slid a little more onto his lap; he tucked his face against her shoulder, and she slid her hand down to where the ends of the shirt had been, and she felt Chuck gasp against her neck: her skin was still wet there from his mouth. 

"Does that feel good?"

"Yes," he said, and the sound was strangely breathy. 

Mako curled the fingers of her hand, and he made another noise: so that's what it meant when somebody was hard. Chucks kissed her neck again.

It takes them a little to figure out that even though Mako likes him to suck on her neck because it feels good, it leaves marks that couldn't be passed off as Kwoon practice. 

How old were they? It was summer before they went to the Academy. 

Memory. 

...

Another memory with Chuck, but this time at the Academy: it took her a while to be let out of confinement to quarters for fighting the McLeans. In the past year, Chuck had gotten to be taller than Mako; now, he was broader than her in the shoulders, too., and he asked why she hated being an omega so much. _Somebody has to be_ , he said, and Mako didn't even bother to answer that she wasn't an omega: instead, she shoved him. He shoved her back, and Mako caught his arm and tried to step close and use her hip as a fulcrum. 

On a Kwoon, Mako could put Chuck on the mat nine times out of ten. But there are rules on the Kwoon. Regulations. Accepted moves. The Kwoon is relatively low-contact, and straight strength counted for less. 

This time, they're squabbling in her cramped quarters, with no room for Mako to twist and turn and slip away, no referee to dock Chuck points if he uses an unauthorized move. He breaks out of her hold by sheer strength, pins her right arm, and traps her legs under his. Mako twists to palm-strike his face with her left hand, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, but he leans back. In fact, Chuck catches her wrist with his free hand; Mako makes a small noise, tries to twist out of the hold, so Chuck shoves her down onto the bed and holds her there. For the space of two, maybe three heartbeats, she lies underneath him, panting in anger. He is panting, too, because it isn't easy holding Mako like this. Mako twists, trying to pull one foot away, so that she can hook it under his leg and pull him off balance, and she gets part of her right foot out, a little more, a little more than -- 

Abruptly, Chuck lets go, shoulder and wrist and the weight of his body. He steps back and off her, avoiding the foot she lashes out at him. 

"You hate the idea of being an omega so much. What do you think my mum was?" he says; it sounds like he might cry. "My old man would give anything to have her back. So would I."

Mako flips over to look him. 

His face, in fact, makes it clear that he is about to cry. Mako is still panting, feeling starved for oxygen, or she'd tell him that she doesn't care what he and his dad want -- whose life is it? She doesn't need to say it, though. 

Slowly, without blinking but while still panting, Mako tilts her chin up, so that he can see exactly what she thinks of him, even if her body doesn't agree. 

...

Memory, memory, the throb of anger in her chest, the buzzing in her ears because she wanted to hit him so badly, but also the memory of getting wet when Chuck pinned her. Not just a little, not just a drip, but enough that she had to change out of her underwear afterwards. She felt it; they could both smell it. Mako was ashamed of it then, and more ashamed afterwards: when she went into heat for the first time, her body remembered Chuck's hands and body and smell, so the rest of Mako remembered, too. 

Pulling Chuck's fingers into her mouth, tilting her head back. Looking the nurse in the eye when he came close, hesitant, because he wasn't sure the Hansens were holding her tight enough. 

The sedatives blurred her vision, and she remembers a conversation about how they were going to get her down there: Mr. Hansen said they couldn't wait for the gurney. He'd carry her, and Mako remembers being picked and shifted, with care, onto his shoulder. He smelled like his son; even sedated, she tried to offer him the back of her neck. It was the middle of the day; there were people around and moving through the Shatterdome. 

He wanted to get her to the infirmary quickly and told her that, over and over, on the way there. They were going to keep her safe. 

Mako remembers begging, out loud, in the hallways, while being carried over his shoulder, for Mr. Hansen to fuck her. 

...

Heat-controlling hormones, scent suppressant, birth control. Shame and fear and anger. The disorienting feel of being carried, sedated, through the Shatterdome in the middle of the afternoon. How many people saw? How many people knew? But Mr. Hansen comes to the door to get _sensei_ for a meeting, and Mako looks up from the journal article she is reading and flushes. She tries to apologize to him for the black eye, for -- other things. He considers her, long and steady, and he says there is nothing to apologize for. He goes away without saying anything about Chuck, and five years later, Mako kneels down on the Shatterdome floor and asks Max if he remembers her. Five years later, she comes into the ConnPod, helmet off, wearing glossy Driftsuit armor.

Raleigh has his head down. He mumbles a few words about taking the right because his left side is shot. 

Mako asks if he is going to say anything, and she watches his head shoot up. 

Blue in her hair, red on her mouth. Black on her shoulders. 

...

Question: Why don't omegas pilot Jaegers? 

After her first heat, Chuck is willing to try to Drift again. Mako refuses. 

 

III. Your body is over me. 

//lighthouse snowball Budapest Pemaquid Sunday dinner drinking in a bar chess in Lima kimono lighthouse snowball Budapest Pemaquid Sunday dinner pick up the oil tanker, Raleigh, we'll do it together, Mako, we'll kill this kaiju for my brother, for you're parents, we'll do it for Sasha and Aleksis, for Cheung, Hu, and Jin, for _sensei_ , for _sensei_ , for -- // 

...

If the Corps were still being overseen by civilian command, Mako would never have been gotten back into a Jaeger after her first Drift. Why don't omegas pilot? Because they aren't in control of their emotions, let alone their bodies. Heat is the quintessential omega experience; not every omega gives birth, but every omega goes through heat. How much more proof do you need? Omegas make fine technicians. Omegas make fine LOCCENT staff. Their attention to detail carries through admirably, but inside a fighting Jaeger, where the control of mind means control of the body decides the survival of major cities and the homes of millions? 

In Raleigh's office, Raleigh tries to jump out in front of it, telling Stacker that it was his fault. He chased first. He is the experienced pilot. He should have -- 

When Mako walks out, tears in her eyes, hands curled into fists, Raleigh doesn't need the Drift to know that Mako is taking it exceptionally hard -- all that training, all that work, all that love and care from _sensei_ , and she still failed out there, just like people were expecting an omega would. In exactly the way that an omega would. 

...

Still, though. Still.

The double event happens, and what choice is there? Stacker sends them back into the field, and afterwards, Mako and Raleigh are still hooked up together in the Drift, killing time while waiting for the choppers to come get them. Raleigh shows Mako a memory of being seven years old in Budapest. He and his brother are running around an old factory, holding sparklers; they're wearing capes. Mako is standing to the side in a Driftsuit laughing with them, but she is also inside Raleigh's body, feeling the way the air catches at the cape, feeling how the sparkler dazzles his eyes. It's a happy childhood memory that will never be clouded by empty cars on a Tokyo street or ashes falling like snow. 

Grateful, Mako shows him one of her happiest memories: it also involves light in darkness.

They were in Manila. _Sensei_ was turning thirty, so what could Mako do for him? She could buy a cake, but that didn't seem adequate. Mr. Hansen told her about a recipe for making cake that didn't need an oven, just a container and ingredients and a cool place to let everything come to together. Alison supplied candles; Chuck found the right kind of cookies. Mako chilled the ingredients in the refrigerator in the science lab, and the image she shows Raleigh is the look on _sensei's_ face when he closed his eyes and blew the candles out-- Mako insisted he make a wish. 

In the memory, Raleigh stands by the side of the table, seeing just how much older Stacker looks now, but he is also Mako, though, seeing Stacker's face in profile. She loves Stacker so much; she respects him so much. She wants him to be happy, and she arranged cake and candles and small, ridiculous hats. Despite the time difference, Mako had Tamsin on the video line, singing happy birthday and wearing a matching small, ridiculous hat -- personal packages were no longer allowed on PPDC shuttle flights. Consequently, get it to her in time, Tendo billeted it as Ranger P. Arty Hat, who was solemnly received in Honolulu Shatterdome, then escorted to the hospital by the Tunaris in their dress blues. They'd just been assigned to Coyote Tango and were delighted to do something to help Stacker Pentecost and Tamsin Sevier, and the joy of seeing Stacker happy and relaxed -- 

Mako loves Stacker Pentecost so much: she owes him so much. For a heartbeat, the emotion fills both the Drift and Raleigh's body. 

How many surprises in Stacker Pentecost's life have been good ones? 

How many times in her life has Mako been completely, unreservedly happy? 

...

Mako and Raleigh are still in their Driftsuits when Stacker congratulates them: Stacker sees Mako's expression, her face suddenly gone stiff, and he brings a hand up to his nose. 

A surprise.

...

Mako and Raleigh are standing together at an intersection. To get to their quarters, they would turn left. 

Alternatively, they could turn right, get into the elevator, and go into the canteen: they're both hungry. Raleigh's stomach was making noises throughout the debrief. Mako is still flying high on post-fight adrenaline, so doesn't feel it yet, but she knows she will -- the protein bar in the locker room won't be enough. Hot food would taste good and feel good., and she can almost feel, almost smell, how one version of the evening works out: they get dinner together. They walk back, Mako's shoulder brushing against Raleigh's arm, Raleigh fitting his steps to hers. They could go to his room, or they could have sex in her quarters. What does it mean to have private space when you've Drifted with someone and killed two kaiju with them?

Raleigh isn't the kind of beta who would mind letting an omega slide on top of him, and even without her being in heat, he'd be willing to go down on her. They wouldn't do anything that both of them didn't want, nothing that scared either of them. Mako knows how sex with a beta goes, and she remembers how Raleigh smiled at her when she stepped into the ConnPOD, wearing a Driftsuit. She remembers how she looked at him through the viewport in her door. 

Raleigh's hair is still a little a damp from the shower. 

"I'll see you tomorrow," Mako says, softly. 

...

In the hallway outside Stacker's office, after the first Drift almost destroys LOCCENT, Chuck picks a fight. 

He looks at Mako while telling both of them they're disgraces; he puts a finger on Raleigh's chest and smiles when Mako gets angry. Raleigh objects, in principle, to being called a wet bitch. On the other hand, kids at his elementary school playground said worse things to each other: instead, he gets angry because he knows the insult is meant for Mako. Chuck knows it; Mako knows it. Mako and Raleigh are fresh off the Drift, and Raleigh can feel the surge of anger. He has a Drift-seen memory of an Academy instructor trying to be kind and explaining why even if she made it past the last cut, she'd never end up in a Jaeger Conn-POD. As if Mako hadn't known for years and years. Then, a compressed memory of a first heat so bad that in the Drift, it crawls straight up Raleigh back and burns between his shoulder blades. It leaves a taste in the back of Raleigh's mouth, flat and acrid, a mix of sweat and humiliation and self-loathing.

When Chuck refuses to apologize, Raleigh doesn't think. 

He hits Chuck. When Chuck shakes off being thrown into a pipe and comes back, without thinking, Raleigh plants a hand, flips, and uses his legs to pull Chuck down to the ground. Chuck gasps something incomprehensible, but Raleigh twists, and Chuck screams.

...

Instead of the Mcleans, there is a memory inside Raleigh's head about the first time Mako and Chuck met each other: she was nine months off Onibaba; he was three months from Scissure. Mako hit first, surprising Chuck. He hit back. 

Their fathers had to separate them. 

...

After the double event, Mako and Raleigh shower. After they shower, instead of going with Raleigh to eat, Mako goes to Chuck's quarters. 

Adrenaline burns in her veins, and so does -- 

She knocks. 

...

When Chuck opens the door, he uses his leg to keep Max from jumping out into the hallway and throwing himself at Mako. Then, Chuck and Mako look at each other. Then, Mako asks if Chuck has any place he can take Max for the night. He pauses, not sure he heard right, but when Mako continues standing there, blue on either side of her face, Chuck says he'll take Max to his father. 

Memory, memory. 

Raleigh was smiling, glad and proud to have done something for a Ranger he respected, but in the passageway, Mako was looking at Herc's arm in a sling. He looked her in the eye while she was shaking his hand: when he saw her studying the sling, he looked away. 

...

Never admit being grateful.

Never admit, to Chuck, fault. 

Never say out loud that in all years in between --

...

When Chuck comes back, Mako is in his shower, rubbing soap along her jaw and letting the hot water wash away the cover-up she uses along her jaw in the mornings. She carries a stick of it with her in the pocket of her working clothes, but there isn't room for one in a Driftsuit, and she sweated half of it off during the fight with Leatherback and Otachi, so she had to wait until she got back to her gym bag to reapply.

"Give me a hand," she says, turning around a little, when she hears Chuck come into the bathroom. 

He is still wearing shirt and trousers and belt and boots. He pulls his socks and boots off and leaves them at the door to the bathroom. He keeps everything else on: Mako opens up the door to the shower booth. Carefully, with the shower starting to wet the front of his shirt, he peels off the suppressant patch at the back of her neck. Mako isn't in heat, so there is no sudden, overwhelming rush of smell. Mako turns around to face him and leans back against the wall: the water is still on. Facing him, she starts to touch herself, circles her clit with two fingers, lets the hot water run over her body and trickle between her legs. 

Chuck closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath. His shirt is almost completely soaked through; Mako's cheeks are red, and so are his. 

Mako reaches forward. She takes his hand by the wrist and shows Chuck how she wants him to finger her. 

It's the same way she liked when they were fifteen. 

...

In the morning, each morning: metharocin, then basal temperature reading, suppressant cocktail, suppressant patch. Birth control, just in case. Two long stripes of scent suppressant along the underside of her jaw, with touch-up every few hours, and Mako knows that her first heat wasn't her fault. She didn't want it to happen, but it did. What happened afterwards, what happened before -- Chuck slept on chairs in the waiting area for days, just in case she wanted to see him, and one night, Mako remembers that she woke up from the medication. _Sensei_ was drowsing in a chair next to he. Exhausted, he had fallen asleep. She slipped out of bed and got a spare blanket down from a closet and put it around him. 

Then she went out into the hall and looked at Chuck, curled up awkwardly into a chair and asleep. It was late enough at night and the infirmary was empty enough that only the emergency lights were on: there was a window on Chuck's other side, and moonlight shone through it. He was asleep, wrapped up in a Lucky Seven jacket, head propped against the wall. Mako watched him take a slow, deep breath, release it, then take another one. Chuck had surprisingly long eyelashes; Chuck had a mouth that she remembered kissing. The sedatives and countermeasures were working, but she could still smell him, Shatterdome standard soap and the thread of something else, and she was -- 

Mako remembers the surge of anger. 

She went back inside to the bed and stared at the wall until she fell asleep, still angry. In the morning, she told sensei that she didn't want Chuck waiting out there anymore. She wasn't going to see him; she didn't want to Drift with him. 

Pentecost considered her for a long, careful moment, then went out and told Chuck. When he came back, he closed the door and asked her quietly, carefully, whether anyone had touched her in a way that she hadn't wanted. 

...

Over the next five years, Mako says fewer than ten words to Chuck. On coming out of Striker during arrival in Hong Kong, he stops when he sees her standing with Stacker and Becket. At the end of the Kwoon session, she walks past him, face hard, shoulders up. 

...

How many other alphas would have gone for help? Would Scott Hansen have done it? 

Mako thinks about it from time to time , especially after she finds out the full story about Scott Hansen -- _sensei_ tells her when she pushes and pushes him on the question of why can't they try to track him down? He has the most experience of any non-active Jaeger pilot left alive. He piloted multiple Jaeger generations. Why wasn't she allowed to add him to the potential candidate list, or vet him? Why was his file still marked _Confidential; Command only_?

Eventually, Mako pushed the issue far enough; eventually, Stacker gave her the file. Mako remembers sitting with the file on her tablet, reading it in her quarters, and going cold, first in the feet, then in the ankles, then at the knees and her hands with her chest feeling tight. 

There weren't pictures, because Herc Hansen looked inside his brother's head and the omega refused to testify, but Mako doesn't need to see them. 

...

With the distance of years, at the end of the day, she knows the answer to the question of whether Scott Hansen would have taken her to the infirmary instead of fucking her -- the answer is _probably._ There were hints, after all, in her childhood memories. It's clear in his dossier: Scott Hansen had an instinct for self-preservation. He was smart. He was would have known, clearly, with detail and the assistance of only a little imagination, what Stacker Pentecost would do if he ever, ever found out. 

Mako can formulate the gist of what his mental thinking would have been. 

By now, she can even guess how Scott Hansen would have phrased it inside his head: there were alphas, and then there were alphas, and then there was Stacker Pentecost, six foot three, ten years out of a Jaeger harness, but still built like he had been in those days. Unyielding on omega issues at the best of moods. What would he be like, if his sixteen year old daughter was in the infirmary, sobbing about having been raped, even if she'd been begging before, wet during, and clamped down around a hard alpha knot afterwards? There'd be hell to pay. 

So.

...

How many teenage alphas would have done the decent thing and gone for help if an omega went into heat? 

How many would have done it for the omega herself, and not fear of her alpha father? 

...

In the passageway with a cheering crowd around them, Chuck won't say, out loud, to either Mako or Raleigh that he is grateful. 

Mako has refused, for years, to acknowledge how much she missed Chuck. 

... 

Eventually, Chuck gets his wet clothes off and drops them in a pile outside the shower. 

...

Inside the shower, Mako presses her back to Chuck's front. He has two fingers inside her, and Mako is slicker than the water on his back and under his feet. He can feel the heat on his fingers, and he can also feel the way she rolls her hips, maximizing contact between his hand and her clit. When he bites the soft point where her neck meets her shoulder, the effect is electrifying for both of them: Mako moans and arches against him. Chuck presses back, sinks his teeth a little deeper, and they both feel how much wetter she gets every time he digs his teeth into her. The air in the bathroom starts to smell -- different. 

Moving very slowly, very carefully, after reaching behind her and getting Chuck to take his fingers out of her, Mako turns around. Her pupils are dilated; Chuck is panting. Slowly, deliberately, working off instinct and memory mixed together, Mako raises her right knee to press against the outside of Chuck's left thigh. She wraps her left leg around his right. 

...

They barely needed words before, and they don't need words now. Chuck puts one arm round Mako's waist and leans her back against the hot tiles of the shower. Mako lets him, and when he tucks a hand underneath the bend of her knee, she pushes up and wraps her legs around his waist. Mako isn't in heat, so she won't get pregnant; neither of them expects to live long enough to worry about sexually transmitted infections, no matter where Chuck has been putting his dick for the past half-dozen years. 

Mako tucks her hands over the back of his neck, and Chuck braces himself against tiled wall. 

Chuck has more than half a foot in height on her and at least sixty pounds of muscle. Chuck is large for a Caucasian male alpha; Mako is slightly taller than average for a Japanese female omega, and the air no longer smells like steam. All the cover-up is gone from the sides of Mako's neck, and she is so aroused that Chuck can taste it on her skin. He kisses her, long and slow. When he pulls away, Mako's cheeks are flushed. She turns her face away, and Chuck bites down, setting his teeth into the grooves his mouth made before. 

He slides into her, and with her face turned against the place on his arm where he has the Striker insignia tattooed, Mako pulls him in further. 

...

Afterwards, with the water running over his face and down his shoulders, Mako starts to kiss Chuck. His dick is still knotted inside her and pressed against her g-spot, and with Mako's legs are still wrapped around his waist, he takes his hand away from the wall and turns off the water. It's still warm, thanks to the size of the Shatterdome boiler plant. 

Then, he puts both arms around her waist. 

"Ready?" he says, and Mako tightens her legs around him for an answer. 

Chuck carries her out of the bathroom, grabbing two towels from the shelf by the sink on the way: he has, they both know, done this before. One towel goes on the floor under his back, the other he hands to Mako, so that she can get a little of the water out of her hair and dry off while they wait. 

Instead of drying her hair, though, Mako takes Chuck's hand by the wrist, and she puts it between her legs. 

"Come on," she says, softly, flushed from cheekbones to the top of her collarbones. 

...

With an alpha knot inside her and Chuck's hand between her legs, Mako comes and comes and comes, gasping things that aren't in either English or Japanese or words at all. Chuck watches Mako's face, feels the strength of her grip on his wrist, keeping his fingers in place on her clit. Afterwards, they stay locked together. In fact, after Mako comes, they're held even more tightly: the omega lock parallels the alpha knot. Chuck runs his hand down Mako's side, over and over, feeling the way her body is clenched around the knot. Mako closes her eyes, and they shift, a little awkwardly, a little uncomfortably, so that she can lie down against him. 

Biology -- 

Chuck gets hard again, and if Mako were in heat, they would probably have gone again. 

...

She isn't, and eventually, the knot and Chuck's hardon fade. Eventually, Mako's body opens. Nevertheless, she stays on top of Chuck, head on his chest. He has lived by himself for years, and lying on him like this, she can see across the bare Shatterdome-standard floor to the black grip bag that he uses to transport his clothes and personal possessions. Max's food bowl and water and bed are gone with him to Herc's, but there are a few crumbs of chow and a drip of water showing where they were. 

Mako listens to Chuck's heartbeat. Chuck moves his hand from her side to the small of her back. 

Without getting up from the floor, he pulls a blanket from his bed and settles it over both of them, and Mako slips a corner of the towel onto Chuck's chest, so that her wet hair isn't directly against his skin.

Neither of them say a word. 

...

The last time Chuck and Mako had sex with each other, they were fifteen. Chuck was most of the way to being an alpha, but Mako didn't smell enough like an omega for him to knot. At the Academy and even afterwards, Chuck thought that if he loved Mako enough, it would somehow work out. Even if she turned out to be an omega. Even if she was angry. 

Even she didn't want him that way anymore. 

They could still pilot and fight kaiju together. 

...

Out on the maintenance bay floor, Raleigh and Mako are in Driftsuits, heads together and talking intently. Chuck calls Tendo _Elvis_ ; he has Max on a leash, and Stacker and Herc come out of the tunnel, Stacker wearing a black Driftsuit. On some level, Chuck knew that his father isn't going to be piloting Striker with him. On some level, Mako knew the odds are of any of them coming back are low: even if _sensei_ stepped out of Striker and back into the Shatterdome again, he would have hours, days, weeks to live after that. The longer he lived after Striker, the greater the period of agony. 

Her first family died when Onibaba came to Tokyo. 

After Pitfall, how many of her second family can she expect to have left? 

...

In Striker, Chuck and Stacker fight Raiju briefly, then Slattern for a more extended period. They come close to killing Slattern, and Slattern calls for aid. Striker is heavily damaged, and Gipsy is nuclear. The release for the thermonuclear warhead on Stricker's back jams because it was damaged in the fight against Slattern, and Stacker and Chuck look at each other. Red light washes over their faces. Sparks are coming from consoles, and water is coming into the ConnPod. 

They say goodbye to those they love; in sequence, Chuck first, they flip the manual override. 

...

Science claims to provide rules and draw lines. Alphas are alphas. Betas are betas. Omegas are omegas and have bodies made to bear young and minds to match. Hormones and chromosome analysis, textbooks and lecture screens: rigid lines. Clear divisions. 

In reality, there are alphas who look like omegas, omegas who look like alphas, and betas that span the entire spectrum of physical type and sexual response and capacity to carry a pregnancy to term. 

In reality, there are people whose bodies do not match deeply rooted self-conceptions of who and what they actually are. Others have bodies that are between male and female, or alpha and beta, or beta and omega, or even alpha and omega. Mako is not trans, genderqueer, or intersex. On the other hand, when she is fourteen and frightened, a doctor shows Mako Mori her blood workup and tells her that she will be an omega. No matter how much she tries, it will be hard for her to keep muscle. No matter what she does, she will never have full control of her body. Mako is given a pamphlet showing omegas working and happy in careers, but for every picture of an omega in a suit or teaching a classroom, the world shows her three of an omega only being happy and fulfilled when with his or her partner, or pregnant, or taking care of small children. 

Worst of all, Mako thinks she will never pilot a Jaeger.

Crushed, she sobs in Stacker's arms. He touches her hair. He tries to convey how much he loves her. 

He tries to teach her that biology isn't destiny. 

...

Science claims to describe biology and draw rules and prescribe lines. Nevertheless, as popularly understood, it contains factual inaccuracies. On top of this, there are stereotypes and ugly prejudice. Stacker Pentecost is a black working-class male who committed a violent offense at a young age. How many people are surprised when he grows into an alpha? Even with muscle on her shoulders and arms, Mako Mori is small compared to most of the people around her. Her facial features are soft. Her voice and frame are feminine, and she is a woman of East Asian descent who happens to be omega. If Jaeger civilian command were to put an omega into the ConnPod, would they put her? 

Nevertheless, at the moment of apocalypse, two male alphas lay down their lives, sacrificing themselves for the world and the ones they love. A female omega of East Asian ethnic descent fights, using raw strength and skill and courage and determination until there are no more living kaiju in front of her. In fact, she kills the last one before oxygen deprivation takes her strength. 

A white male beta, supposedly rational and balanced and cautious, decides that it matters where he dies.

He falls into the Anteverse on a mission of faith. 

...

A teenage male alpha goes for help even though he wants, more than anything, to lie down on the floor with the omega that he thought would be his co-pilot. Herc Hansen hates his brother and comes to despise everything Scott stands for. 

Stacker Pentecost wants to save the world and change it, too: in the Drift, while Gipsy walks to the Breach, Mako catches a glimpse of how she looked to Raleigh when they walked out of the Jaeger after the double event. Black suit. Blue hair. Red mouth. Everything wonderful and desirable in the world, combined into one: Slattern rises from the blown-out remains of Striker crater, and the right side of the Jaeger is shot, so Mako drives a chain-sword into its head. 

She kills the last kaiju to ever come into the world, and Raleigh rides it through the Breach. 

...

Afterwards, two pods surface. 

Mako wakes first and pulls off her helmet, stands. She sees Raleigh's pod a dozen yards away, so she dives into the water, Driftsuit and all, and swims over: pulling herself up over the side is difficult, but it turns out she can't feel a pulse. They don't sense one back in LOCCENT either, and for a moment, she is terrified that he is dead, but eventually, he coughs that she is holding him too tightly: there is salt water in her hair, on her cheeks, and because she took her helmet off and swam over, the sea washed away the scent suppressant along her jaw and the patch back of her neck. Consequently, Mako smells like last alpha who came inside her -- a dead man's scent, and Mako will go on smelling like that for a week or more, until her body accepts that she wasn't in heat and isn't pregnant. 

She is in tears from losing Stacker and almost losing Raleigh. Slowly, Raleigh goes to his knees: he takes his hands in hers. He smiles at her. 

There are choppers in the sky, and with tears still in her eyes, Mako leans her forehead against Raleigh. He leans against her. 

... 

"Are you disappointed?" Mako asks. 

"You will never disappoint me because of this."

The expression on Stacker's face --

**Author's Note:**

> Title and headings from [Staring at the Sun](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uo2WLQ2LVA) by TV on the Radio. And I'm pretty sure the line where Chuck blurts out that Angela was an omega is from [destronomics](http://destronomics.tumblr.com), even though she disavows any and all interest in both a/b/o fic and Pacific Rim as a fandom. 
> 
> [analogized](http://analogized.tumblr.com) continues to be the greatest beta-reader ever, and thanks to [abluta](archiveofourown.org/users/abluta), who helps me be less shitty.


End file.
